"Let's go," she said, hopping into the cab.
Derald made a face into his rearview mirror. "We're taking the casket?"
"I need to check it out thoroughly. Just drive and we'll pull over somewhere private."
Alex pointed out a boarded up gas station a couple miles later, and they pulled into the weed-infested parking lot behind it. Alex jumped out and into the pickup bed. Derald stayed where he was, tapping the steering wheel nervously.
Alex TKed the coffin's rusty clamps and after taking a moment to brace herself lifted the lid.
One small skeleton rested atop a pile of bones. No other skulls or complete skeletons that she could see. Alex breathed out in relief for that. No rotten flesh – just a musty, cheesy smell. Some of her anticipated queasiness struck her when she noticed the assortment of shapes and thicknesses among the bones. They couldn't be from one body. Rest In Pieces.
Derald climbed out, his motions heavy with reluctance, and moved to the side of truck bed, shielding his eyes against the setting sun as he peered into the open casket. In that instant, all the bones except the three-year-old's skeleton disappeared.
"It's just one little body," he said. "What the stone advertised."
"Not until you looked," said Alex. "Up to then, there was a bunch of bones." When her companion blinked at her, she added, "It's a clue, like the headstone in Soul City. That's how clues work, Derald. They're for gamers. Residents or other avatars aren't permitted to see them."
"I just have to take your word on that."
"You don't have to take my word for anything."
"So all those bones...they meant some people were murdered?" He swallowed. "That the little girl was murdered?"
"I'd say so."
Derald turned away from the coffin, slumping against the truck. Alex closed the lid.
"Now what?" Derald asked.
"I'm going to do some research. Just chill for a minute."
Alex started with the girl, Lilly Schuster. Died of complications resulting from Down Syndrome. Manson Health Center. Parents, Gale and Horace Schuster. No indication of foul play. She looked for local people who had died in the last five years. It wasn't a long list – twelve people. Alex performed some simple math to match the deaths and ages with the list on the McKissik headstone. A twenty year old who overdosed on sleeping pills and lady suffering from Alzheimer's who died in a convalescent hospital matched. So did a fifty-year-old male, who also died of a heart attack in Manson Health Center. The date-matchers continued with a forty-two-year-old man who'd expired while jogging – he was being treated for diabetes at the Center –and a sixty-two-year-old woman who'd departed virtual reality courtesy of a hemorrhagic stroke.
Did the killer work at the hospital? Alex checked the hospital medical staff. Five nurses, one surgeon, three MDs. The only name she could immediately link to any of them was the attending MD at the time of Lilly's death: Ana R. Lawsone. Alex searched her name. Ana R. Lawsone, Psychiatry, General Practice. She appeared to be something of a jack-of-all-trades in the small hospital, performing counseling one day and colonoscopies another. She also had the title: Assistant Chief Administrator. Alex wouldn't have even thought that combination was possible. An interesting person, and possibly a person of interest.
Was she involved in the treatment of the others? Public records, predictably, drew a blank. But that blank wouldn't be hard to fill in.
Alex terminated the Real internet connection. Derald was pacing at the rear end of the lot, kicking at the weeds. When she straightened up from the side of the pickup, he walked back to her.
"Any luck?" he asked.
"Some. I'll need to do the rest the old-fashioned way. Why don't we get a motel? I'll decide then if I want to do anything more tonight."
"What about the casket?"
"Good point." Alex sighed. "Let's go back to the cemetery. I'll re-bury it."
A half-hour later, they checked into a Super Eight motel room. Alex caught Derald squinting at her as she contemplated the evening's options.
"What?" she asked.
"I can tell when you leave, you know."
"You mean, leave my avatar?"
"Yeah."
"Am I here now?"
He smiled. "The spark's there now. At first, I couldn't tell. But there's this dullness when you're not here. You say the right things, but without much feeling. I thought you might be faking it to try to prove your point or screw with my mind, but I don't see why you'd care about that."
"I don't."
"So I guess I think it's real. You really do go somewhere else with your mind."
"Scary thought, huh?"
"I don't know. I've been thinking about what you said about me anguishing. But what's the point, you know? It is what it is. It doesn't do me or anyone any good crying about it."
"I came to the same conclusion," said Alex. "I've done my share of anguishing and crying, too, believe it or not."
Alex pulled the local phone directory from the desk between their beds and looked up the parents of Lilly Schuster. Their phone number hadn't shown up in the Versenet, which wasn't nearly as invasive in terms of social networking and private search sites as the Real. But here they were, Gale and Horace Schuster, in the local directory.
"Let me borrow your cell," she said.
Alex dreamed up a flimsy cover story and entered their number. Four rings.
"Hello?" A young woman's voice, cautious, slightly out of breath.
"Mrs. Schuster, I'm Alexandra Mills. I work for the State Hospital Auditor. We're currently investigating the Manson Health Center in response to some complaints our department has received. I wonder if I might have a few moments of your time."
"Why? What complaints?"
"Complaints of improper care. I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to name the complainants or those under investigation. I simply want to confirm that your daughter, Lilly, was under the care of a doctor from the Center."
"Yes. Dr. Lawsone. She always treated our baby with kindness. A wonderful woman. I can't believe she is guilty of doing anything wrong."
"I understand. But did you ever observe anything at the hospital that did appear unusual or in any way suspicious?"
"Um, no. They all seem like good people."
"Thank you for your time, Mrs. Schuster."
Alex dropped the phone on the bed. Derald was smiling at her.
"You're good," he said. "You lie like a pro."
"I've had plenty of practice." She decided not to add that telling mindless sims convincing stories was part and parcel of gaming success.
"You think this Dr. Lawsone is a suspect?"
"She's the only one I can tie to any of this through the girl. And that's not much of a connection. But if he links to any of the others, it's on. All I have now is a feeling she's my girl."
"What would you do if she is?"
"Good question."
Alex sagged back against the wall. It was strange, but relaxing motions tended to soothe her actual body, which she was about ready to join. Not much more to do here tonight. Her avatar might not need rest, food, or anything else, but she did.
"I'd probably try to set her up," she said, stretching. "Tape a confession or something. Then turn her in to the local constabulary."
"And then what happens?"
"Assuming that solves Stage Four, I move on to the next and presumably glorious final stage."
"Didn't you say something about your avatar 'resetting'?"
"Did I?" Alex had a vague memory, unsure if it was hers or her avatar's.
"Yeah, you did. You made it sound like you were going to be erased."
"My avatar won't be erased. Your world's memories of it will be altered, though."
"Wait a minute." Derald was massaging his forehead again. Alex wondered if he'd rub through to his skull, or maybe get a brain tumor from all his angst. "Are you saying I won't remember you?"
"You'll remember all this – just with someone with a different appearanc
e or name. Ditto for the rest of your world. The events will remain intact. Only the face and name will change."
"I'm going to remember meeting you and driving out here with you – but with a different body and face?"
"That's right."
"Hard to believe."
"Yeah."
"Your 'Gamemasters' have the ability to alter our very reality."
Not so much a question as a mournful statement. Alex stretched again, deciding not answering might be the least cruel option.
"I'm going to check out for tonight," she said. "I'll see you in the morning. Feel free to grill my avatar while I'm gone."
"Thanks," Derald grunted. "But I think I'll try to get some shuteye. Hopefully, dream-free."
Chapter 17
REGRETFULLY, ALEX DID DREAM.
Dopey, convoluted, illogical, and faintly ominous dreams. She crawled out of bed, took one halting step, and fell flat on her face.
This is how it begins. Her first thought. Dumb. It began when she was four years old. Hell, it probably started in the fucking womb. So now what? Was she having a stroke? Some form of seizure?
Alex tucked in her right arm. So far so good. Now her left. Check. Push. Semi-check. The muscles she'd built in the gym were more than adequate – she sensed their potential strength – but they were firing up like spark plugs installed in the wrong order (which she'd actually done in a virtual workshop!), twitching one way and then another, countering rather working with each other.
"Uh, mom," she said. She raised her voice. "Mom!"
The house had that usually wonderful silence of her mom being gone – a more than reasonable likelihood at eight-fifteen AM, as decreed by her night table clock. Speaking of the night table, her cell perched there in its charger beside the clock. Now – just a matter of crawling the eight or so feet to the table and reaching or dislodging the phone. Good news: she didn't seem to be suffering from a stroke or heart attack. Her mind was painfully clear. Not so good news: her body had developed a mind of its own, and that mind was severely retarded. She guessed she was having a seizure. She'd had a few over the years, but usually she had some warning. Auras or some shit. But this was like she'd stepped wrong and hit her head.
Alex extended her arms and kicked with her legs, attempting to swim across the floor. She felt she was swimming against a carpet current. The tingling in her body suggested the presence of electric eels.
Several Zeno Paradox inches later, she reached the night table. She pushed her right hand up as if pressing an imaginary weight, clawed over the table's edge, and grasped the phone. The charger and phone came crashing down on her head. Nice wake-up call. She corralled the phone, summoning "favorites," her thumb hovering between MOM and 911. How pathetic was that having an emergency number as a "favorite"?
The act of holding the phone seemed to burn off whatever had her in its clutches. One moment she was Flipper trying to navigate on land – the next, she was merely a clumsy dork who'd taken a misstep. She grabbed the edge of the bed and pulled herself to her feet. She expected a San Francisco-sized earthquake of vertigo and weakness but experienced no more than a Sacramento Valley tremor. Nausea whispered seductively in her ear before retreating. She took a step alongside the bed. And another.
The seizure or whatever it was had passed. Alex sensed it in her core as her body came fully back on line. She was okay. For now.
Dressed and in the kitchen, she downed a few grams of liposomal C, a go-to vitamin when she thought she was fighting a cold or just feeling down, and topped it off with a cup of organic green tea. She walked out into the backyard morning sun, pausing to stretch every thirty or forty feet, willing her body to normalcy, as pitiable as that was. Should she call Dr. Walters? She'd have her come in, do some tests, and – major revelation – they'd confirm she was suffering from one of the countless symptoms of FA. More rest advisable. Watch your diet. Yada yada.
But it was time, past time, for her to rejoin her avatar and her sad-sack companion in the motel. She'd fallen asleep mid-research last night and had no fleshed-out plans for the morning, which she needed to remedy tout fucking suite.
Track down some family or friends of the ungrateful dead? Or skip the middle people and pay a visit to the multi-talented Dr. Ana R. Lawsone? Her gut was practically squirming with certainty that she was her quarry. Ana R. Lawsone. A single "n" Anna was suspicious enough in itself. What kind of idiot parent thought that removing, adding, or rearranging letters of conventional names conveyed originality or uniqueness? Rhetorical question. And "Lawsone" wasn't exactly normal, either.
At the kitchen table, Alex typed in "Lawsone" on her laptop while she spooned down some cold cereal. The spoon froze at her lips when the top result from Wiki popped up:
Lawsone (2-hydroxy-1,4-naphthoquinone), also known as hennotannic acid, is a red-orange dye present in the leaves of the henna plant (Lawsonia inermis) as well as in the flower of water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes).
The "Bingo!" in her head was loud enough to wake the virtual dead. She had her lady – "lady" definitely in quotes – but...but..."Henna" was in custody and formally charged. Didn't that bind her avatar to her? Had something changed, or was there some fine print in that rule she didn't know about? She hadn't checked on her since the authorities announced their intent to charge her as the infamous Highwayman.
Alex entered "Henna Flowers" into the Omniverse search window. The first result was a brisk slap in the face:
HIGHWAYMAN SUSPECT HENNA FLOWERS ESCAPES CUSTODY
New Mexico authorities have announced that suspected Highwayman, Henna Flowers, broke out of a prison bus transporting her and a few other inmates to a special high-security DARE detention facility.
Authorities are reluctant to supply details, but Governor Harrelson confirmed that Flowers employed unknown augmented abilities in the escape...
Alex's ballooning sense of triumph deflated. Henna had "employed unknown augmented abilities" and leaped – or flown? – into a rulebook Twilight Zone as far as Alex knew. First question: Did the arrest bind her in any way now? She had the right by Verse rules to escape jail, that was clear, but could she legally disappear her avatar under those circumstances? Alex doubted it. At best, she suspected, Henna could hide her avatar down a deep hole somewhere. As long as her avatar wasn't incarcerated, it was technically free. Perhaps its owner was free, too – free enough to occupy another avatar? Alex didn't know the rule in these cases, but the answer was looking to be yes.
Second question: Had Henna obtained additional powers while in custody? It certainly looked that way. Again, Alex wasn't sure about the rules. She knew this much: once a court convicted an avatar of a crime, it had to serve the sentence. No get out of jail powers allowed. But before that, the avatar/owner occupied the aforementioned judiciary Twilight Zone. Alex had never studied the relevant aspects of Verse law, so she wasn't sure, but the escape and presumably new powers implied the owner had checkout and editing freedoms. This meant she or he could occupy the Dr. Lawsone avatar and transfer whatever power or powers acquired in custody to Dr. Lawsone. Or acquire additional powers. Errrggh.
Was it worth doing some research now to find an answer? Better, she thought, to assume the worst.
Alex completed her morning revival with an electrolyte-vitamin drink and another gram of liposomal C for the road. She needed to be in top form for what might happen next.
Alex joined her avatar alone in the motel room. Video memories informed her that Derald had gone out for breakfast. She flexed his muscles, made a pair of nice, veiny biceps pop out. God, it was good to be back in the macho saddle again after her petit mal. But was she ready to take down the evil doctor? Alex had one more lethal weapon than before, far more deadly than a gun at short range. How unlikely was it that Dr. Evil had acquired some new powers as well?
Derald banged through the door.
"Alex?" he asked. "You back?"
"In the digital flesh. How was breakfast?"
"Vint
age greasy spoon. I think they soaked the potatoes and chicken-fried steak in 30-weight oil. One good thing, though, it will probably take most of the day to digest it."
Alex laughed. "One more reason to be grateful I'm food-free."
Derald dropped down on his bed, facing her. Freshly showered and shaved, he approached handsomeness. "What's the plan?"
"I know the perp," Alex said. "The pretty and plucky Dr. Ana Lawsone. As non-coincidence would have it, we're old adversaries."
"You've run into this doctor before?"
"In a different form. The one I met was a hitchhiker, younger, scruffier, the tree-hugging hippie-next-door. From the photos online, Dr. Loathsome is older, darker hair, more authority."
"Hitchhiker?" His furry eyebrows bunched together. "Where was this?"
"It doesn't matter." Alex met the man's quizzical gaze with a cold smile. Would he finally put 2 and 3 together and guess who she was? But then Alex Milner was officially dead now, right? "Anyhow, I'm going to go out now and deal with this piece of shit. I'd like to borrow your truck. Would you mind hanging out here for a while? I'll be back before too long."
"What if you don't come back?"
"I'll leave the cash here. In the unlikely event I don't return, take it all. I'll leave your pickup at the Manson Health Center, keys under the seat."
"Why don't I come with you?"
"If you want to get caught up in a fight to the death between two 'Augmented Americans,' then sure, come with me."
"She's augmented?" His features lost some of their tanned hues.
"Definitely. And I don't how augmented." Alex stood up, scooping her cap and sunglasses from the bed. "Don't fret, Mr. Truth Warrior. Whatever powers she has, she's a rank amateur, and I will find a way to fuck her up. Trust me, I'll be back."
"Well...good luck, Alex."
The Goddess Quest Page 26